The Books Ireland monthly bestseller charts are out now
With the new summer season comes lots of change, and not just in the weather! We’re seeing lots of switching up in the bestseller charts this month, which covers the four-week period ending the 3rd of June 2023.
In the fiction charts, Claire Keegan is out of the top ten adult fiction spots for the first time in months. Trespasses (Bloomsbury) is back in the charts in tenth place thanks to Kennedy’s shortlisting in the Women’s’ Prize for Fiction, the winner of which is being announced June 14th.
Fiction
There’s lots of new entries shooting up to the top spots, but perhaps the most poignant is Lucinda Riley’s Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt (Macmillan), published posthumously by her son, Harry Whittaker. Though the pair have collaborated on work before, Whittaker stresses that this book had only minimal editorial input from him and that it’s his mother’s work, who passed away from oesophageal cancer in 2016. ‘I felt that preserving Mum’s voice should take precedence. With this in mind, only the bare minimum editorial work has been undertaken’, he shared with fans.
We’re excited for mysterious, crime-thriller reads this summer, with Jo Spain, Andrea Mara and Liz Nugent all in the top five spots with their complex, twisty tales and looking for the perfect, romantic beach read, with My Happy Place (Viking) and The Woman on the Bridge (Headline Review), a pitch perfect historical romance from Sheila Flanagan all making the top spots.
Children’s Books
The Childrens’ charts didn’t see too many new entries, with all of the usual suspects – Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Puffin) and David Walliam’s Robodog (HarperCollins) – shuffling up and down the board. Peppa Pig Goes to Ireland (Ladybird) returned to the top three and Dogman 11: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea (Scholastic U.S.) maintained its number one spot.
One of two new reads entered the charts, with the latest from the Percy Jackson universe making an appearance. The long-promised The Sun and the Star (Puffin) was co-written by Rick Riordan, the creator of the series and Mark Oshiro and it takes the form of a spinoff about two of the series most popular characters. On the co-writing process, Rick Riordan commented: ‘It was really important to me that writing a book entirely from the perspective of two queer characters, I collaborated with a great queer author who could bring perspective, authenticity, and a different set of writing strengths to the project. Mark Oshiro is someone whose writing I greatly admire, and who also knows the Percy Jackson world intimately. They were the perfect choice’.
Another spinoff from a popular series also re-entered the children’s charts, with Suzanne Collins’ A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Scholastic), a Hunger Games prequel taking a spot in the top ten. The resurge in popularity is probably due to the release of the trailer for the upcoming film, scheduled for release in November 2023. Another interesting entry is Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Bloomsbury). The giant in children’s’ literature hasn’t appeared in the top ten in the Irish children’s charts in quite a while, but perhaps this reappearance is due to all of the films becoming available on Irish and British Netflix in the past month.
Non fiction
In nonfiction this month, Katriona O’Sullivan’s gritty memoir Poor (Sandycove) has rocketed to the top spot, booting out the hugely successful Bored of Lunch series. Published by Sandycove, Poor examines the complexities of poverty and the importance of beacons of hope and self-belief at rock bottom. An inspiring read from an award-winning lecturer whose work explores barriers to education, this is for sure on our reading list this month.
Healthy habits are still dominating the charts, with the reliable appearance of Georgie Crawford’s Glow (Hachette Books Ireland) and James Clear’s Atomic Habits (Random House Business Books), along with a new entry from Jessie Inchauspé, The Glucose Goddess Method (New River Books). British and Irish politics and history take centre stage in the top ten, with The Murderer and the Taoiseach: Death, Politics and GUBU (Hachette Books Ireland) by Harry McGee exploring the scandalous summer of 1982, that saw Ireland’s most notorious cat-and-mouse game to catch a criminal unfold and Rory Carroll’s Killing Thatcher: The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown (Mudlark) keeps its place in the top ten.
Overall
The overall top spots are snapped up by our top three in fiction Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt, No One Saw a Thing and Don’t Look Back. In fact, all of the top spots except for the last goes to fiction reads, adult and children, except for Georgie Crawford’s Glow in the tenth spot. Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us makes an unsurprising appearance in the overall bestsellers, along with Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry which is experiencing a nice surge in popularity again due to the trailer for the upcoming TV show being released. Check out all of the charts here to get inspired for your summer reads!
